Farhat (Meena) Lakhavani
Farhat (Meena) J. Lakhavani is the Chief Information Officer at the Harvard Kennedy School. She has management responsibility for delivering all information technology services for HKS internal users and a global audience for its research and teaching. As CIO, she works closely with the senior leadership to develop a strategy that supports the academic and administrative programs. She serves as the HKS lead for University-wide IT initiatives and projects.
Meena has extensive higher education experience. Before joining HKS in January 2021, she was CIO & Vice Provost at the State University of New York at Erie, where she led transformational changes. Before joining SUNY Erie in 2016, she held various positions at Carnegie Mellon University for over 28 years - from Manager of Research Computing to the Director of Academic Technology Services Strategy. She has also taught in the undergraduate, graduate, and executive programs at Carnegie Mellon. Meena holds a B.A. in Humanities, an M.S. in Computer Science, and has completed doctoral course work in Computer Science at the University of Pittsburgh. Meena has presented IT-related work at national & international conferences and other forums. She has also published extensively. She actively participates in various national organizations and has served on advisory committees such as the EDUCAUSE Professional Development Advisory Committee.